December 18, 2013

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Katherine

I’m in the cafeteria with Chloe and I can feel the room has a warmth that was not there before Thanksgiving break. When we first met talk was easy, interesting, and limitless, then it was more difficult, and now it’s better. It’s familiar and pleasant. Sometimes we laugh without much restraint. And I project this near-euphoric familiarity into the atmosphere of the room: It is like the dining hall is blushing: happy, excited, and a little shy.

Almost as soon as I’m conscious of this new happy feeling, I am self-conscious. Maybe it’s temporary, and maybe she’s only laughing because I am, but I think I detect a real desire to hang out when she says that she wishes she had smoked her weed with me instead of another person. There is ease in our conversation, and what I suspect is mutual enjoyment.

I listened to an interview Julie Klausner did with the writer Gaylord Fields. At one point he told her that since he’s black and most of what’s on TV is white people doing white people things, he felt like a cultural anthropologist whenever he watched it. He didn’t look to movies and books for reflections of his own experiences, but to examine the customs of a different culture. I’ve felt a similar relationship to my own life. When I’m with Chloe and I affectionately notice one of her mannerisms or I laugh at something we’re talking about, and especially when I hang out in a group and with new people, I feel like I’m collecting data. But it’s not like I’m reading about or watching a documentary on some unfamiliar culture—whereas I used to only be able to observe human behavior from a critical distance, I now feel immersed, like with enough time here I could actually become part of this foreign civilization. I feel an increasing familiarity with my classmates, my tenuous ties to them strengthening each day. I still can’t imaging having a fully formed social life, but I see a hazy form in the distance. I can’t make out the shape of it, but it’s there. And things are gaining momentum. I’ve been enjoying my hanging-out times with Chloe more and more.

I feel like I’m finally ready to be with people. Or like I could be ready. Or like just being with them means I’ve been ready for a little while. I think weed is a revelation. Chloe and I hung out with some older girls in their room, and it was like a layer of noise and static had cleared away. My thoughts felt logical and clear, talking didn’t hurt, and my stomach felt OK after it all.

Naomi, this is so strange… I’ve been meaning to write a response to your diary entries for a long time, but have only felt physically impelled to do so now in light of recent circumstances.

It is odd how we can be so connected to people we have never met, without perhaps even being aware of that fact. How our experiences are symbiotically aligned with those of complete strangers.

Not only are we similar in the issues that we have both traversed, but now we are studying in the same city. For all I know, our paths have crossed a multitude of times without either of our awareness.

But, at the risk of sounding farcical, I feel a strange sisterhood with you, and I wanted to make you aware of my existence. It is comforting to know that we never move through life alone, even if we don’t personally know those who we are walking beside.

Naomi, each week you make me so happy. Your diaries are like the spirit of every young woman going out into the world for the first time. I feel like we have all seen you blossom and watching you go from scared and alone to living this beautiful life gives me so much happiness and hope, and reminds me every week of how my own life has changed along with yours, going from school and boredom and sadness to such extreme happiness and independence as I have gone out into the world. I was in London last week and, as silly as this sounds, I kept on finding myself thinking of you and how you were in the same city as me. It made me so happy as I wandered around to think I might come across you and never know it. You just give me so much hope, and I feel so proud of you, and so proud of myself, and proud of every girl who has gone from insular, high-school worlds and out into life and discovered happiness.

Oh my god, you’re AMAZING. I’ve spent the past week watching interviews with him from the ’90s and I’m going to get to some of the more recent ones over winter break. I want to gush more about NIN in this comment (especially since it’s the only band I like as much/almost as much as Nirvana) but I’ll stop now. Your comment just made me really, really happy, though.

Britney your second paragraph basically summarizes my year so far. Not caring what other people think sort of elevates you, and you feel so much more confident and free. And you’re right. This gives you the power and fulfillment of spending time with yourself. I no longer feel the need to always be with someone, especially at school. I am perfectly happy being on my own with music or a book or my thoughts, and not giving a damn about anyone else’s opinion on me or my sometimes elaborate dress sense. <3 thank you for sharing